Miracle Grow vs. Foxfarm Ocean Forest side by side comparison

THE TEST-

Miracle Grow and MG plant food plus some cheap kelp fertilizer verses FFOF and Cornicopia line of nutes along with Nitrozime and Earth Juice Catylyst. I have used the latter for a few years now (owner of the grow store near me makes the Cornicopia line) with good results.

THE SUBJECTS-

Group A...6 NHK aka Neighborhood Kush (OG x (LLOG x Chemdawg). Breeder is Tryna. These are fifth generation clones and stay very green until latter stages of flower. Just a little nute shy I would say they are average or maybe a little light on the nutes is what she likes. Flower time is 8 weeks.

Three of the NHK have been placed in Miracle Grow Potting Soil with added perlite and lime and the other three are in FFOF with added perlite and lime.

Group B...6 Grape Apollo (Gorilla Grape x Apollo) that will be ready to be potted in another week. Breeder is Frost Bros.I'll do the same dealio with them...3 in MG and 3 in Ocean Forest. The GA cut that I kept is Apollo dom but has the resin production and taste of the GG. She is a big time N hog and can handle heavy doses of nutes without burning. Flower time for her is 48-50 days.

...Initial thoughts on the MG soil is that it's very heavy and the large #3 perlite that I use is too big to be used alone. The smaller size perlite along with the #3 would be better. I would think the roots would have a hard time breathing in that soil especially with no additional areator amendment

The competition...


My line-up...


Soaking up some filtered sunlight...



Grape Apollos on top were put in a week after the kushes on the bottom...


MG on the left OF on the right, cuttings picked at random...


MG soil on the left with the green lettering and OF with the black lettering...


Comments welcome let the games begin!

Subbed up... curious to see it, but not going back to miracle gro regardless

Sorry folks I'm not sure how this thread ended up in the Organics section as it was posted last night in the Advanced section. If it was moved by anyone then this documentation is over I don't put up with that shit for a second. If it was just a stoner moment on my part and it's my mistake then I apologize for the little rant

Subbed! ....Gonna try MG nutes too?

Hey T how's it going. I am using MG nutes along with some inexpensive kelp fertilizer, its in the first pic. I don't like the consistancy of the mg soil, it needs to be much more areated I'm thinking. Haha MG nutes are almost free lol, like under 5 bucks for a big box. Should last a long time considering it calls for a 1/2 teaspoon once every 2 weeks.

Yeah if a mod wanted to stick this someplace else other than Advanced they could have picked a better place to put it,,,Organics is the last place it should be

I can see the difference in FF and MG just off looks. i hate how Miracle grow gets kinda muddy, it has a weird consistency. I had no idea you like to do experiments n shit.

I'll prolly start recycling my soil and add amendments to it like you had mentioned. I have plenty of it lol. Use it outside in my flower gardens and there is a bunch out in the barn.

I got the idea from ubs' thread on snake oils and I have been noticing how expensive a lot of the stuff in the grow stores are vs basically the same shit you can get anywhere for much less. Of course some fining tuning will have to be done but that's what this thread is about.

Now how do I get it out of this section lol?

Highlanders cave said:

I'll prolly start recycling my soil and add amendments to it like you had mentioned. I have plenty of it lol. Use it outside in my flower gardens and there is a bunch out in the barn.

I got the idea from ubs' thread on snake oils and I have been noticing how expensive a lot of the stuff in the grow stores are vs basically the same shit you can get anywhere for much less. Of course some fining tuning will have to be done but that's what this thread is about.

Now how do I get it out of this section lol?

Click to expand...

I agree about snake oils and such. But one thing in life i did learn is. You get what you pay for, eh. As far as soil. I may add perlite if needed but other than that i'm good. all the amendment condition the soil almost back to new. i also add old cloning plugs from harvested plants in for aeration, or any coco seedling pot in my soil for aeration. Wish you and your lady could get down here, lol . got 4 tix to a theme park (scareowinds) but nobody to go with. i went once this year but i left my cam, definitely pics this time. seen some creepy looking monsters.

The two main issues I have with miracle gro are taste and health.... can almost guarantee you it's not going to taste as good as organic. More than that, and I know smoking at all isn't exactly health, but there's a difference in what you smoke... and i'm not hearing anyone talk about the benefits of smoking osmocote (or whatever they call it) in your buds. Not saying all non-organics are bad, just that i don't trust that those nutes are not gonna give me cancer. There's evidence that smoking cannabis actually fights lung tumor formation -- i'm not gonna negate it by smoking chemicals. How do you flush a 6 month time release pellet??

It's also not necessarily an organic vs nonorganic issue when it comes to price... it's more of a hydro store vs non-hydro store issue... the bigger stores sell organic amendments and soils that don't cost an arm and a leg... hell i'd rather grow the miracle grow organic soil than the osmocote crap in fact i may have to do a side by side on it... it's definitely cheaper than roots i think i'm just gonna work on recycling.

MG organic sucks, if you get the one for potted plants. scotts as well. OH yea HC im assuming nitrozyme is an enzyme that will help with old soil as well. eating roots n fibers.

Nitrozym is not an enyzme product I don't think correct me if I am wrong though.

I like Black Gold Organic Potting Soil, Roots Organic, or M.G. Organic Potting Soil. Although just buying a Bale or 2 of COCO is way cheaper, get a bag of earthworm casting as well and your good to go.

I do recycle alot of my COCO and its good for 2-3-4 runs and then it starts to have broken down to the point where more fresh coir needs to be added but still.

If you don't have access to like Black Gold or whatever then the M.G. Organic Potting mix with some perlite and coco mixed in does an awesome job that is for sure!!!

I used to use Perlite, Miracle Grow Organic Garden Soil, and Coco for my large volume containers as it was a cheap mix to make, had decent drainage and still good nutes. ( 20+ gallon stuff )

Although M.G. isnt that cheap Roots is like 16-18 a bag for 1.5-2cu ft. M.G. Organic Potting mix on sale is 11.99-12.99 for 1.5cu ft. Black Gold ORganic on sale at ACE this year was 9.99 for 1.5Cu ft.

Like I said I can get Roots which is 2cu ft. for $18 and I can get a bale of COCO for $15 and 15lb. bag of EWC for 9.99... throw in $10 of perlite and I got like 4-4.5cu ft. of medium for like $35 as oppose which comes out to less then the M.G. or anything else....

I am totally dubbed up for this and ready to see whats up.... btw I never heard of cornicopia do you have a link or any info on it? Thanks.

You're right i looked it up. For an enzyme i am usine Sensizyme. But i reccommend Hygrozyme, shit is absolutely amazing .

subbed interesting - but i would expect substantially better results from FF

I use Hygrosyme when reusing coco and soil meduims at the rate of about 6-7ml a gallon. I also use it in veg like once every 7-10 days.... and sometimes in flower although I never seen it make a differnce in flower to justify the costs and such.

Specially cause in veg I can get by on 5 gallons of nute.... in flower I make as much as 40 gallons every 3 days.... it racks up fast... same with roots excel. from H&G I love that stuff but I do not use it in flower due to cost vs. performance.

THC&STDs4All said:

subbed interesting - but i would expect substantially better results from FF

Click to expand...

Hate to say it my money is on the M.G. specially if he ends up cutting it in with some perlite.

well i guess we'LL see haha

Lol, i'm knowing FF will have better girls. Positive, but i want to see how MG holds up. There FF has alot more advantages, especially in the first few weeks. Myco's, Micro's And all kinds of shit. I haven't bout soinl in a year or so. But i was buying fox farm. If i was using synthetic nutes id be using fox farm still. damn hc Wish i could get you a grows worth of FF three liquid nutes, and do ff w/cornucopia nutes and foxfarm with fox farm.

Thanks for subbing everyone. Im a bit hesitant to continue this thread in this section. This is not about organic vs non-organic, it's more about finding a happy medium of paying less for my overhead and getting at least as much yeild. If after a year of dialing things in with the cheaper stuff I can't get as good of results as I can with what I'm using I'll switch back. It doesn't take much additional buddage to pay for a hundred bucks worth of nutes lol, I'd rather give my buddy Rick the money than Lowes. Anf we should take into consideration the scale of things...I cycle about fifteen plants through ea month in 1.75 gal rosepots

I dig all the comments, I'm sure that I'm going to learn a lot.

....yo Cowboy, feel free to post what you were saying about mg

TrynaGroSumShyt said:

Lol, i'm knowing FF will have better girls. Positive, but i want to see how MG holds up. There FF has alot more advantages, especially in the first few weeks. Myco's, Micro's And all kinds of shit. I haven't bout soinl in a year or so. But i was buying fox farm. If i was using synthetic nutes id be using fox farm still. damn hc Wish i could get you a grows worth of FF three liquid nutes, and do ff w/cornucopia nutes and foxfarm with fox farm.

Click to expand...

Haha I did that already! I used their entire line-up for three yrs. That was before I started my other journal back when I was pheno searching through subs gear. To be honest the Cornicopia blew the FF out of the water and I never looked back. Thanks for the offer too for the tix to the scareowinds sounds like it would have been a lot of fun lol.

Computer is being a turd and won't let me copy right now but Cornicopia fertilizer can be looked up if anyone wanted to.

Subbing...